Max Verstappen confesses he ‘exceeded his wildest expectations’ since making F1 debut in 2015
Red bull's Max Verstappen made his debut at the age of just 17 years with then Toro Rosso and emerged as a world champion several years later.
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Max Verstappen (via IMAGO)
Max Verstappen has been dominating the scene in F1 for the past few years. However, his journey to the championship was not as easy as it might seem. The Dutchman had never won a championship in open-wheel racing and had his career-best finish of third in European F3 in 2014. Reflecting upon his progress, the reigning champion admitted that he had exceeded his expectations when he entered the grid.
Red Bull has a fairly vast driver development program known for finding world champions like Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen. However, the Dutchman’s journey was rather different from the German. Verstappen made his F1 debut in 2015 with Toro Rosso (RB). He emerged as the lead driver in the junior team and was subsequently promoted to Milton Keynes five races into 2016.
Since then, he has never looked back and has become a three-time world champion. Ruminating on the accolades he has amassed, Verstappen claimed himself to have exceeded his wildest expectations.
You know, I haven’t really thought about that, about ‘expectations’. I try to tell myself that I’m going to try to do the best I can every year. Because your dream is of course to become world champion and things like that. But yeah, those are things that come your way if you do well enough.Max Verstappen said in an interview with Formule1
The 26-year-old further had the following to add.
And of course you have to be in the right team. Of course, everything that happened exceeded my wildest expectations. But again, I wasn’t thinking about it at all. 61 wins, none, or one: I never really worried about that.Max Verstappen via the same interview
Verstappen emphasized the importance of being with the right squad. Ever since his debut, he has been with Red Bull but achieving the success he has, is no short feat, and the Dutchman renounced the same as he was flustered by his performances which exceeded his dreams.
Max Verstappen had set up his GT3 team behind the scenes
While Verstappen has claimed the spot of being the No.1 in F1, his journey in the motorsport industry is not over. He already co-owns Redline Racing in the sim racing world, but he has been recently enveloped in setting up his own GT3 team.
The Dutchman recently did a GT3 test and revealed he was setting up his team to race in the GT3 category.
I always had this passion of eventually setting up my own team. We started to create Verstappen.com racing. At the moment, it's three drivers in the GT3 cars. What I also enjoy is to see young talent coming through so that's why to try and create your own team.Max Verstappen said in the documentary Verstappen-Off The Beaten Track
The reigning champion confessed that he always wanted to set up his team which led to the creation of Verstappen.com Racing. Furthermore, he admitted he was happy with the three drivers he has signed for the racing marque as he likes to promote potent young talent into the motorsport sphere.
Apart from this, Verstappen is currently in his mid-20s and is anticipated to race in F1 for a decade more least. Thus, he could potentially win more world championships and start his venture in F1 to expand his racing initiative.
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Geetansh Pasricha
(772 Articles Published)